IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/20330.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firing costs and stigma: an empirical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Canziani, Patrizia

Abstract

When information about workers'' abilities is imperfect, past employment histories are important determinants of unemployment duration. This paper studies the effects of employment protection laws on unemployment spells in two countries: Italy and Spain. Italy and Spain''s adoption of fixed-term contracts with lower firing costs in the mid 1980s provides an interesting empirical framework to study the effects of policies affecting firing costs. The evidence presented supports the hypothesis that when firing costs increase, so does the stigma attached to bad employment histories. First, I show that in Italy people, who became unemployed because of termination of the employment contract, have 10 per cent lower probability per year to remain unemployed than fired workers. Second in Spain, workers dismissed from a temporary job have 30 per cent shorter unemployment spells than workers fired from regulator contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Canziani, Patrizia, 1997. "Firing costs and stigma: an empirical analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20330, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20330
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20330/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Job security, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 851-879, June.
    2. Alfonso Alba-Ramirez & Richard B. Freeman, 1990. "Jobfinding and Wages when Longrun Unemployment is Really Long: The Case of Spain," NBER Working Papers 3409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    4. Lawrence F. Katz, 1986. "Layoffs, Recall and the Duration of Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 1825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bruce C. Greenwald, 1986. "Adverse Selection in the Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(3), pages 325-347.
    6. Bentolila, Samuel & Saint-Paul, Gilles, 1992. "The macroeconomic impact of flexible labor contracts, with an application to Spain," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1013-1047, June.
    7. Ando,Albert & Guiso,Luigi & Visco,Ignazio (ed.), 1994. "Saving and the Accumulation of Wealth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521452083, September.
    8. Jacob Mincer, 1986. "Wage Changes in Job Changes," NBER Working Papers 1907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Canziani, Patrizia & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2001. "Firing costs and stigma: A theoretical analysis and evidence from microdata," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1877-1906, December.
    2. Simon Burgess, 1999. "The Reallocation of Labour: An International Comparison Using Job Tenure," CEP Discussion Papers dp0416, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Alonso-Borrego, César & Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Galdon-Sanchez, Jose Enrique, 2004. "Evaluating Labor Market Reforms: A General Equilibrium Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 1129, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. repec:pri:indrel:dsp011j92g746j is not listed on IDEAS
    5. John T. Addison & Paulino Teixeira, 2003. "The Economics of Employment Protection," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 24(1), pages 85-129, January.
    6. Gibbons, Robert & Katz, Lawrence F, 1991. "Layoffs and Lemons," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(4), pages 351-380, October.
    7. Martínez Matute, Marta & Perez Dominguez, Carlos, 2012. "El impacto de los costes de despido sobre el empleo en España: Una estimación con datos de panel/Impact Of Firing Costs On The Spanish Employment: A Panel Data Estimation," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 30, pages 137-162, Abril.
    8. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:2985-3028 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Diego Daruich & Sabrina Di Addario & Raffaele Saggio, 2023. "The Effects of Partial Employment Protection Reforms: Evidence from Italy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 2880-2942.
    10. Adriana D. Kugler, 2004. "The Effect of Job Security Regulations on Labor Market Flexibility. Evidence from the Colombian Labor Market Reform," NBER Chapters, in: Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, pages 183-228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Modesto, Leonor & Thomas, Jonathan P., 2001. "An analysis of labour adjustment costs in unionized economies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 475-501, September.
    12. Sebastian Edwards & Alejandra Cox Edwards, 2000. "Economic Reforms and Labor Markets: Policy Issues and Lessons from Chile," NBER Working Papers 7646, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Kugler, Adriana & Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2000. "Hiring and Firing Costs, Adverse Selection and Long-term Unemployment," IZA Discussion Papers 134, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Tiiu Paas & Raul Eamets & Jaan Masso & Marit Room, 2003. "Labour Market Flexibility And Migration In The Baltic States: Macro Evidences," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 16, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    15. Adriana Kugler, 1999. "The Impact of Firing Costs on Turnover and Unemployment: Evidence from the Colombian Labour Market Reform," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 389-410, August.
    16. P Canziani, 1997. "Firing Costs and Stigma: An Empirical Analysis," CEP Discussion Papers dp0358, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Kugler, Adriana, 2000. "The Incidence of Job Security Regulations on Labor Market Flexibility and Compliance in Colombia: Evidence from the 1990 Reform," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3267, Inter-American Development Bank.
    18. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Odd Rune Straume, 2012. "Employment Protection Versus Flexicurity: On Technology Adoption in Unionised Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(1), pages 177-199, March.
    19. Marco Leonardi & Giovanni Pica, 2013. "Who Pays for it? The Heterogeneous Wage Effects of Employment Protection Legislation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1236-1278, December.
    20. Horst Feldmann, 2005. "Labour Market Institutions and Labour Market Performance in Transition Countries," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 47-82.
    21. David Card & Richard B. Freeman, 2004. "What Have Two Decades of British Economic Reform Delivered?," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 9-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski & Przemysław Włodarczyk, 2012. "Wpływ prawnej ochrony zatrudnienia na rynek pracy w warunkach negatywnego szoku ekonomicznego," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 11-12, pages 1-23.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20330. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.